Understanding phonics phases
Phonics phases group the sounds children learn, and roughly when. The ages attached to them are guidance, not a timetable.
Most English primary schools teach phonics in phases. Each one introduces a set of sounds and builds on the one before, so a child is not asked to blend sounds they have not met.
The phases at a glance
| Phase | Typically | Broadly covers |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Nursery, age 3–4 | Listening, rhythm and rhyme, hearing sounds in spoken words |
| Phase 2 | Reception, age 4–5 | First single-letter sounds, and blending very short words |
| Phase 3 | Reception, age 4–5 | Remaining single letters, plus sounds written with two letters |
| Phase 4 | Reception to Year 1, age 5–6 | No new sounds — words with consonants next to each other, such as "stop" or "milk" |
| Phase 5 | Year 1, age 5–6 | Alternative spellings and pronunciations for sounds already known |
| Phase 6 | Year 2, age 6–7 | Spelling rules and reading fluency, led by the school |
Phase 4 surprises people
It introduces no new sounds at all. The difficulty moves from "which sound is this?" to holding several sounds in mind at once — "stop" has four sounds with two consonants pressed together at the start, and a child who knows every one of those sounds individually can still find the word hard.
This is worth knowing at home, because it can look like a child has gone backwards when they have not. They have met a different kind of demand.
The ages are guidance, not targets
Every child moves at their own pace, and the year groups above are rough conventions rather than rules. A child working within an earlier phase than their age suggests is not behind in any meaningful sense; they are where they are, and the next step is the same either way.
Programmes differ. Schools using different schemes introduce sounds in different orders and sometimes use different names for the phases, so a child's own school guidance should always take precedence over a general table like this one.
Where to go next
If the terms in this guide were unfamiliar,what is synthetic phonics?covers blending and segmenting from the beginning.
Bridging Phonics is a record and practice tool for adults. It is not a validated systematic synthetic phonics programme, it does not assess or diagnose a child, and it does not replace teaching from school or advice from a qualified specialist.